My Bloody Valentine
by Amberdreams
Summary: The Winchesters go in search of a good old fashioned angry-spirit hunt after a gory murder in a cinema ...naturally, just like with true love, the course of a Winchester hunt rarely goes smoothly. Set in future Season 6 so may contain spoiler references
1. Chapter 1

A/N: The Winchesters head for the East Coast in search of a good old fashioned angry spirit hunt after a gory murder in a brand new cinema...naturally, just like with true love, the course of a Winchester hunt rarely goes smoothly.

Set in non existent future Season 6 so there may be occasional very brief, very high level references to stuff pertaining to any or all preceding seasons. Some sparing use of the f-word...hence the T rating

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**Chapter 1. **

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It all started when Buzz Lightyear flew out of the film and into the movie theatre. Of course none of the grown ups believed the kids who witnessed this wonder, and so nothing was done about it. Towards the end of the film, when some of the laser beams shot by Emperor Zurg made small burn holes in the otherwise pristine upholstery, the cleaning staff put it down to parents illicitly smoking in the auditorium, though they never found any cigarette butts or smelt any tobacco smoke. Teddy Tuijl, owner/manager of the brand new movie theatre, did wonder at the number of Buzz Lightyear dolls that were left behind by the audience during that week, but as he was new to this line of work, thought nothing of it.

The following week the Marsh Movie Theatre had booked another 3D experience, but this one was for the adults, a celebration for the up and coming Valentine's Day. It was a shame that the events during _Toy Story 2 in 3D_ had not been recognised for the warning shots that they were, as perhaps that might have enabled the next incident to be avoided. Or maybe it was just inevitable – an unnatural accident waiting to happen. As it was, when Malcolm Sergeant (bachelor, 32) was found at the end of the second evening's show pinned to his seat with a bloodied mining implement, the police were forced to close the cinema down while a murder investigation was carried out.

Balding and amiable Sheriff Eric Sutcliffe was out of his depth and floundering, never having had to deal with anything more violent than one or two domestic disputes that had got out of hand (plates had been thrown and there had been considerable use of foul language) and one accidental drowning of a wealthy tourist who had fallen from the deck of his multi-million dollar yacht one night whilst high on cocaine. And the latter death had been greeted by most of the community as poetic justice for what had obviously been a life of profligate sin.

So when the FBI arrived on the scene some five days after Malcolm's death, Sheriff Sutcliffe greeted them with great relief.

********

_He wasn't listening to Sam any more, instead his attention was focussed solely on staying conscious. He didn't understand what was happening. One moment everything had been fine. He and Sam were chatting about something minor and unimportant over the mini barrier of the raised laptop screen, the next moment he felt the most incredible pain wash over him, his sight had blanked out and he'd felt his heart judder against his ribs as if someone or something had grabbed hold of the throbbing organ and given it a yank. Beside his ear he felt hot breath and a hated voice whispered _

"_You got a lot to learn, boy. So I'll see you back in class bright and early Monday morning…"_

_Alastair. No. Impossible. Alastair was dead, Sam had killed him; hadn't he?_

_He gripped the edge of the Formica table in desperation as he began to burn from the inside out._

Dean Winchester woke with a start, swallowing the scream on his lips before it could overspill and fly free round the room to wake up his sleeping brother. He wiped sweat from his face with a hand that was, he was annoyed to see, still shaking. Groaning silently, he propped himself up on one elbow and checked the luminous display on the bedside clock. 03:14. _Crap. Still four hours before dawn. Four hours to get through before facing another day_. He reached under the bed for the whiskey bottle that was his constant companion, found it suspiciously lightweight and sure enough, when he held it up to the pale green light cast by the electronic clock's display, he found it empty. He cursed under his breath and sat up. There was no way he would sleep now, he knew from weary experience once he'd woken from one of these nightmares, he would be wide awake for the rest of the long, long night. Well, no point in bitching about it, may as well do something useful with the dead time and see if he couldn't do better than his geek brother in finding their next job.

He padded silently across the motel room in his bare feet and settled himself at the small Formica topped table in front of the laptop, both of which had just featured so vividly in his dream. Gritting his teeth as the images flashed in front of his sore eyes all over again, he flipped open the lid and powered up. The sooner he had something to do, the sooner he could thrust those thoughts to the back of his mind, safely locked up with all the rest in the huge Dean-box of unpleasant memories. Keeping the lid on that box wasn't getting any easier, but most days, Dean managed to sit on the lid long enough maintain his front of insouciance, to his own satisfaction at least.

Unlike Sam's more clinical, structured approach, the Dean Winchester research method was just to type random searches into the news feeds, taking pot luck on what might pop up. After a few minutes, Dean was safely absorbed into the weird and wonderful apocrypha that constituted news for small-town America; so much so that he barely noticed the time passing, and his nightmares were, at least temporarily, forgotten. Every now and then, he would chuckle quietly to himself as he found some new gem worthy of the front page of Weekly World News. Then after about two hours of searching, he found it. The job he'd been looking for.

Satisfied, he allowed himself to be soothed by the continued soundtrack of soft snoring provided by his kid brother, and with a smile on his tired face, Dean happily dozed off at last, face pillowed by the plastic keyboard.

******

Sam found Dean there in the morning, and kindly left him drooling into the keys. He knew Dean needed all the sleep he could get these days, whatever odd position it might be in. It was Dean's laptop, so he was undisturbed by any worries about short-circuiting the machine, and besides was mildly interested to see what strange patterns would be imprinted on the older Winchester's cheek when he finally surfaced.

He didn't have long to wait. By the time Sam had showered and cleaned his teeth the older Winchester was stirring, and already bitching about how hungry he was. Sam smiled to himself. Some things never changed, and the insatiable appetite of Dean Winchester for the biggest, greasiest breakfasts that the roadside diners of America had to offer was one of them. What was more surprising was that Dean had not been surfing porn sites but had been doing some research and had found them a job.

"Lewes you say? And that's where exactly?"

"Delaware." Mumbled through a mouthful of bacon.

"Right, Delaware, near New Jersey – what's that, a two day drive from here?"

"More like 15 hours, Sammy, a nice easy run in a day for me and my baby."

"And you want to go there to investigate a _possible_ haunting in a movie theatre, when there are still hundreds of dangerous demons on the loose, and probably at least one closer to Clinton Iowa than the east coast."

"Yes, Sam, I do. I want a job that is straight-forward for a change. You know, no mind-fucking, no Asian demon-spirits who seduce and freeze you, no tricksters who twist reality, no frigging angels dragging our asses back and forward in time…oh and not to mention that way out there in a one-boat seaside town there's not much chance of bumping into any ignorant gung ho hunters out to kick our butts for jump-starting the apocalypse. And besides, a man is impaled with a _pickaxe_ for crissakes, while out at the movies with his recently-dead brother's widow, what's not to like about a nice simple pissed off spirit case like that?"

Sam had been staring at the older Winchester in fascination, wondering when he was going to pause to take a breath, decided that he wasn't, so interrupted before Dean suffocated himself.

"Whoa, okay, okay. Lewes it is then."

His big brother was clearly in a good mood, or at least putting on a convincing show for his small audience of one. So much so, he even let Sam drive the first leg of the trip, though Sam still couldn't persuade Dean to allow him to crank up the volume on the music of his choice – yeah, _driver picks and shotgun shuts up_, but tolerance and Winchester rules only went so far when it came to the volume controls for what Dean complained was Sam's poor taste in 'easy listening crap'.

So Sam kept the antique cassette deck volume low and hummed along quietly to Jason Manns while Dean turned up the collar on his battered leather jacket, covered his eyes with his shades and snored his way through Illinois and most of Indiana. In fact, Dean barely stirred when Sam stopped for gas, only woke briefly to scoff the burger and fries Sam bought at a drive in grease-pit somewhere east of South Bend, then slept like the noisy dead again until they were nearly at the border with Ohio. He was so uncharacteristically quiet (apart from the snoring, of course) Sam had just started to worry there was actually something wrong with him when Dean finally woke up and put his mind at rest by immediately grumbling about Sam's driving. That was Sam's cue to let Dean take the wheel, and he wasn't slow in taking his big brother's none too subtle hints. They swapped places at the next opportunity, and it was Sam's turn to sleep as the Impala ate up the miles to the Delaware coast with a self-satisfied purr.

******

Lewes was small, a pretty coastal town with all the usual amenities, unremarkable save for the fact that its brand new movie theatre down by the site of the old whaling station had been witness to a particularly gruesome murder by someone or something with a deranged sense of humour. Using the very implement for the dirty deed that featured so heavily in the film that was being shown at the time the victim was killed seemed to indicate a strong sense of irony in the perpetrator.

Being heavily reliant on the tourist trade, which didn't usually take too kindly to the idea that there might be a crazed pickaxe-wielding killer on the loose, the town-folk of Lewes were very keen to see the case resolved as quickly as possible. This meant they were extra pleased to welcome Sam Ermalenko and Dean Macey, FBI agents, and far less likely to wonder why Federal Bureau representatives might turn up in a classic 1967 Chevrolet Impala, dressed (initially at least) in ripped jeans and scruffy casual jackets.

The Winchesters checked into the Marine Motel's _Moby Dick_ room (which elicited a guffaw from Dean that earned him his fifth Sam-bitch-face of the day, not that he'd been counting) thinking to grab a night's rest (rest being a euphemism in the Winchester dictionary as neither man ever slept that easily) before starting their investigation in earnest the next morning. Their plans were thwarted by the small town mentality that meant that Mandy the Motel receptionist who had quizzed them briefly about their presence in Lewes, had immediately rung all her friends, who had rung their friends, one of whom mentioned the fact that the FBI had arrived in town to Sheriff Sutcliffe, who, eager beyond words to hand over his file, jumped straight into Lewes' only cop car and within three quarters of an hour of their arrival, surprised said Special Agents Ermalenko and Macey with a knock on their door.

Dean answered the door warily fresh from his shower, and was surprised to find himself face to face with a tall, thin, slightly shiny man in a khaki country sheriff's uniform who immediately seized his hand and started pumping it enthusiastically.

"Eric Sutcliffe, Sussex County Sheriff," the shiny man introduced himself, his pale blue eyes wide, and eagerly fixed on Dean's bemused hazel ones.

"Erm, right." Dean swiftly collected his scattered thoughts and hoped Sam was listening from the bathroom where he'd disappeared to shower, or he might embarrass them further by appearing clad only in towel or worse, naked. "Dean Macey, FBI." The hunter had rarely felt less like a convincing representative of the Federal Bureau than at that moment, standing in the doorway of a Moby Dick themed motel room in nothing but black boxers and an old Led Zeppelin t shirt, but if the Sheriff wasn't bothered by his unconventional appearance, he supposed, why should Dean worry?

"Um, perhaps you'd better step inside, Sheriff Sutcliffe, while I get some clothes on…"

The earnest law enforcer only just seemed to notice that this representative of the Central Government was actually half naked, and rapidly nodded as he followed Dean into the room, flushing from chin to the shining crown of his balding head in embarrassment. Dean barely managed to suppress a smile as he thought the Sheriff at that a moment looked exactly like one of those nodding dogs you used to get to sit in the rear windscreens of cars and annoy the hell out of the driver behind.

"P..p..please," stammered the nervously nodding Sheriff, "Call me Eric."

"Right. Eric." Dean gestured to the strangely shaped table that appeared to be made entirely from driftwood by a demented carpenter, and offered Eric a seat in a chair that unfortunately matched the table perfectly. Aside from the beds, which thankfully appeared to have escaped the attentions of the Motel's interior designer, none of the additional furniture in the room looked as though it would stand up to actually being used, but fortunately for the Sheriff, appearances can indeed be deceiving, and the driftwood chair held up as the Sheriff sat down and placed his beige case folder on the rough wood table top. Dean decided against dressing in his standard FBI/lawyer/whatever-else-he-needed-to-be-suit in front of the law enforcement officer and instead just grabbed his tatty jeans and pulled them on quickly before sitting himself down opposite Eric. He promptly wished he'd faced the window instead of the wall, because behind Eric's head was a huge relief/mural of what was clearly intended to be Moby Dick himself, but really looked more like a cross between Babar the Elephant and Big Bird – which as Dean had pointed out to his brother earlier, really ought to be impossible and probably should be illegal. With a struggle, the older of the Winchesters pulled his attention back to the earnest Sheriff of Lewes and his now open case folder.

It was worth his attention. The Sheriff spread out the photographs of the victim in situ in the auditorium of the cinema. Malcolm Sergeant was sitting in his seat, a look of intense surprise on his slightly podgy face, his bulging eyes focussed on the undeniable standard issue mining pickaxe that was buried, pointy end first, deep in his slightly podgy stomach. As Dean started to examine the photos, a fully clothed if casually dressed Sam emerged from the nautically themed bathroom (kitted out rather disturbingly to look like the cockpit of a whaling ship, complete with ship's wheel). The younger Winchester had clearly overheard their unexpected visitor arrive, so was prepared to jump straight into the debriefing discussion with his usual incisive questioning style partnering and complimenting his brother's more indirect off the wall approach.

An hour or so later, Dean was showing the now relaxed and happy Eric to the door, having relieved himself, as he saw it, of a heavy burden. He had been only too eager to leave all the paperwork in the very capable hands of Uncle Sam's two tall representatives. Closing the door on the satisfied Sheriff, the two Winchesters ran over their conclusions so far.

"So, I'm thinking pissed off spirit is probably right, and Malcolm's late brother looks the likeliest candidate., seeing as how he's now banging James Sergeant's ex wife."

Sam nodded in agreement. "Certainly seems the strongest possibility, given nobody in the cinema saw anyone with a pickaxe before during or after the movie, apart from the one being used by the characters on the screen."

Dean snorted. "Yep. And it's not like anyone can just stick a bloody great pickaxe in a bag or down the back of their pants and hope no one notices. The problem is, the Sheriff..." Sam interjected with a grin "You mean _Eric_, don't you?" Dean flipped Sam the finger – second of the day – not that he was counting – and continued.

"The Sheriff said James Sergeant was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq, and no remains were brought home so…"

"So what is holding his spirit here? And why the Movie Theatre? It doesn't make sense, especially as last time James was home in Lewes it wasn't even built."

"Looks like more juicy research for my favourite geek boy tomorrow then, while I do the rounds interviewing a few of the locals."

"As long as that doesn't mean you concentrating on the female locals to the exclusion of the male population, Dean, that's fine by me."

"Oh ha, ha, bro'. I'll have you know that I am a consummate professional. As a member of Uncle Sam's Federal Bureau my investigations are always carried out with absolute probity."

"Absolute what?" Sam sniggered. "I think you mean propriety."

Dean grinned at having drawn Sam in. "Exactly. So glad you agree. You see, I _am_ always right."

Sam huffed, then laughed. "Yes Dean, and no doubt you think you're an awesome brother too."

"Damn right I am, Sammy boy. Damn right."

Somehow or other, that night under the beady gaze of Moby Dick proved to be the best night's sleep either Winchester had managed for a very long time.

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A/N: Chapter 2 in the pipeline - all comments (good, bad or indifferent) very welcome - let me know what works for you, and what doesn't!


	2. Chapter 2

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The brothers spent mutually frustrating mornings on their separate tasks - Sam having exhausted the internet as a resource, carried out a fruitless visit to the cemetery and undertakers, then made his way over to the Lewes records office to trawl through mounds of paperwork looking for anything to connect the late James Sergeant with the site of the Marine Movie Theatre, and found precisely nothing – while Dean carried out a door to door which had yielded nothing but some very strange if entertaining stories from two of the little kids he'd seen about how Buzz Lightyear had come to life and flown around the cinema when they'd been to see _Toy Story 2_, and how much that had rocked, man! Awesome.

Dean met up with Sam outside the record office, both looking smart as hell in their official FBI suits, but with that dapper image somewhat tarnished by their mutual disgruntlement at their singular lack of success.

"So, I guess we just need to visit the scene of the crime then, and see if we can figure it out from there." Dean grumped, frowning.

Sam shrugged his massive shoulders and ran a distracted hand through his slicked back long hair. "Guess so."

Cinema manager, Teddy Tuijl (_pronounced Tile y'know_) proved more than happy to arrange a private showing of _My Bloody Valentine 3D (remastered)_ to assist the FBI investigation. He was mystified by some of the strange equipment they were wielding as they prowled around his precious auditorium, but was soon too busy sorting out the projector to worry what the two tall G-Men were up to. He dimmed the lights and started the movie rolling. He just hoped they would find whatever they were looking for quickly so that he could reopen the Movie Theatre again. These past two weeks of forced closure were really eating into his profit margins….

As the lights faded and the movie soundtrack started, Dean glanced up at the screen. He remembered bits of the film from when he'd seen it years ago, when it was first released, and knew that there wouldn't be any potentially dangerous 3D action aimed at the direction of the audience until it got to the kids' party down the mine shaft, so he was happy for he and Sam to make the rounds of the auditorium with the EMF meters to see check for any ghostly reaction as the film played out. On screen, scenes of bloody murder in a hospital made a gory backdrop to the Winchester brother's search.

"Hey, you know the chick I took to this movie said that Tom Hanniger guy looks a bit like me," Dean called across the empty seats to Sam as they worked in parallel down each wall. Sam glanced up at the character on screen and shrugged sceptically. "Mmm, right."

Dean laughed and pointed at the actor in question. "Nah, I didn't think so either. He is a handsome son of a gun, but not nearly as pretty as me!"

Sam gave Dean a look of tolerant disgust, then grinned as a thought struck him.

"So you think that guy is pretty, eh? And I didn't think you swung that way, Dean…"

Dean stopped waving the EMF meter for a second, an expression of embarrassed outrage on his face. "What…? No!"

Quickly changing the subject, Dean asked again. "Are you sure we shouldn't put the 3D glasses on for this? In the interests of recreating the circumstances?"

He couldn't hear Sam's exasperated huff over the breadth of the theatre and the loud soundtrack, but he could see from the set of his brother's remarkably broad shoulders that a considerable huff had definitely been expelled from that remarkably broad chest. After all these years, it was still something Dean found himself constantly bemused by, that his little brother had grown into such a giant while he wasn't looking.

"Dean, if you want to wander around looking like Buddy Holly while we work, then knock yourself out. I prefer to keep my vision clear so I can see what I am doing, thanks." Sam turned his back and so missed Dean giving him the finger, though Dean was sure Sam knew that was going to be his likely response. Not that they were in any way predictable.

Whilst the film ploughed through its bloody path with much screaming and some unintentional moments of hilarity, the Winchesters scoured every inch of the auditorium for any sign of something supernatural at work.

Dean started guiltily and shoved the 3D specs quickly into his suit jacket pocket as Sam shone his flashlight onto the back row where Dean had surreptitiously plonked himself to sneak a peek at the movie.

"I've got bubkis," Sam shouted over the dialogue, waving flashlight in one hand and the unresponsive EMF meter in the other. "What about you?"

"Nah, nothing." Dean glanced back at the screen. The film was drawing towards a climax, the girl Sarah was in the SUV with Hanniger, her husband the sheriff was on the cell trying to persuade her that her old flame was in fact a total nut-job, and this was a nice big car crash just waiting to happen. He started to make his way down the aisle towards Sam, who had clearly decided to take his 190lb weight off those huge feet and had sat down in the middle of the row he'd been working over with so little success. Idly Dean noticed that Sam was right in the middle of the auditorium, probably only a row back from where the victim Malcolm Sergeant had encountered the flying pickaxe of doom….

Dean looked up at the screen again with a sudden sense of urgency. If he remembered rightly, wasn't this the part when – _oh shit it was_ – when the woman grabs the steering wheel and forces the car off the road and – "Sam!"

Both EMF meters started flashing like Christmas trees and Dean was suddenly running towards his brother, leaping across the lines of seats with reckless abandon, while on the big screen the car veered wildly and careered straight into a tree. As if in slow motion, Dean saw quite clearly how the broken limb of the tree smashed through the fictional windscreen and emerged from the flat screen out into real life, headed inexorably towards Sam. Too slow. He was too damn slow! His brother was belatedly starting to rise from his seat, was halfway onto his feet when the broken branch reached him. Horrified and helpless, Dean could only watch as the jagged limb that should not have been there speared Sam right through his stomach as he rose, slamming the tall hunter back into the red velvet seat. Dean's hyperawareness was so honed in on his brother's plight he could hear, even over the film soundtrack, Sam's breath whoosh out with the impact, in an involuntary exhale of pain as his tall frame folded over the obscenity impaling him.

A second or two later, Dean reached Sam, yelling at the top of his voice up at the projection booth for Teddy Tuijl to switch off the fucking film and hit the lights. When there was no response from the weedy manager, the older hunter simply took aim with his colt 1911 and shot out the projector, still shouting for more light as he shoved the gun into his pocket and tried to assess the damage to his little brother. With the ambient light from the big screen gone, he was working largely by touch, Sam's flashlight beaming uselessly under the seats, his dropped somewhere behind him in his headlong haste to reach Sam.

In the newly silent auditorium he could all too clearly hear the younger hunter's wheezing breaths and faint moans as he ran his shaking hands over Sam's body, hissing between clenched teeth as his fingers hit the rough bark – goddamit, the frigging tree was still _there_, his shooting out the projector hadn't caused it to dematerialise as he had half hoped it would. He knew that was unlikely, given that the pickaxe that had taken out Malcolm Sergeant had been very much in evidence on the police photos, but still…

After a few seconds of rapid assessment, Dean became grateful that the branch was still firmly inside his brother's body as he realised that it being in situ was probably the only thing now stopping Sam bleeding to death. If it had disappeared into its own reality, all that would be left behind would be a huge gaping hole in his little brother's gut – it didn't bear thinking about, so Dean didn't – yet another nasty thought to be buried away with all the others. That box of evil memories was really starting to look more like a bank vault these days both in terms of size and the amount of security that was required to keep everything locked down so tightly….

"It's ok, Sam, I gotcha" Dean was keeping up an almost unconscious murmured litany of encouragement. Even after all this time and whatever might have changed in their relationship, offering this stream of comforting words was still second nature to Dean when looking after his kid brother. Sam's hand whipped out grasping his wrist in a painfully tight grip as Dean's hand slid over the injured man's stomach, feeling at the edges of an entry wound that must be, he realised with a sickening plummet in his own gut, at least three or four inches in diameter.

"Don't move, Sammy, just hold real still while I see if I can…." He was interrupted by the theatre's main lights finally coming on. Teddy Tuijl must have finally woken up. It wasn't the brightest illumination, but a huge improvement on the near darkness that had been hampering his efforts moments before. Mentally he corrected that assessment – it was an improvement because he could now see what he was doing, but what he was looking at was something he had never wanted to see again. Sam's face was deathly white, his hazel eyes wide but unfocussed and glazed with pain. His brother's expression was shocked and agonised, all at once. Dean felt the fear rising _ColdOak-ColdOak-nonono_ and ruthlessly squashed it back down. Not now, no time for weakness now – or ever. He pulled himself together, game face firmly in place, and tried to see how bad this really was.

Sam was slumped forward in the folding seat, curled over the branch that protruded from his midsection like a slightly crooked medieval tourney lance. Once Dean had loosened Sam's bone crunching grip on his own wrist, he gently detached the other big hand from its grip on the shaft of the branch; he knew it was important that the intrusion was not disturbed in any way, or it could cause even more damage. He stood up to see what was happening at Sam's back and was horrified to see that the wooden stake was sticking out from the back of the seat itself by a good six inches. Swallowing hard, Dean could see the pointed end of the branch was dark and dripping with blood. Sam's blood. His knees felt weak and he rubbed his face not noticing or caring that this action smeared that same blood across his cheek.

After a moment he vaguely registered the ineffectual hovering presence of the cinema manager, and that he was wittering on about something unimportant.

"Just call 911, will you?" Dean growled, his gaze fierce as he briefly looked away from the Sam disaster area and at the green-faced young man, mesmerised by the horrific injury. "And get the fire service as well as an ambulance. We're going to need help getting him out of here without moving this branch." As the manager scuttled away, Dean shouted after him "Tell them to bring a chainsaw!"

********

A/N: I confess, I am a review junkie, please feed my desperate habit…..


	3. Chapter 3

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This was shaping up to become one of the longest days in Dean Winchester's full life of long days. He could see he was making the nursing staff uneasy with his fierce pacing that threatened to wear a deeper and deeper trench into their shiny linoleum floors outside the operating theatre. He didn't care. He had been keeping vigil outside the white and aluminium doors of the operating theatre for the whole six (interminable) hours it took to remove what looked to Dean like half a damn tree sticking out of his brother's stomach. It was as if he was tethered to that spot. If he even thought of moving more than a few yards from those damnable blank uncommunicative doors, invisible threads would tug at his aching heart and pull him back again.

The emergency services had taken over an hour to extricate Sam from the cinema, and even then they had been forced to remove the seat at the same time. There was no way they could risk trying to extract the branch while he was in the cinema; so the only option, which Dean had known all along, from the moment he'd seen how the impalement went through his brother and the seat at the same time, was to cut the seat free of its row and carry the younger Winchester out still attached.

Dean suffered along with Sam, and beyond, as Sam wavered in and out of consciousness while the fire-fighters wielded the chainsaws and cutting equipment and the paramedics tried to make sure the younger hunter was kept stable and still. He sat as close as he could get to his brother in the ambulance, still talking, trying to keep up that steady flow of encouragement. Trying to anchor Sam to him, to cling to life as long as he could. And even though it worked, because Sam's eyes whenever they cracked open would seek out and fix on Dean's increasingly haggard face, the older Winchester couldn't stop that ever present little voice in his head telling him that this was all his fault. He was the one who'd insisted on coming here, looking for some semblance of normality, in as far as the Winchester version of it ever went, which was pretty damn far from normal in anyone else's book. If he hadn't insisted on this stupid trip to Lewes, Sam would have found them something else to hunt, and this 3D madness would have happened to someone else. At this point in time, sweating over whether his kid brother would live or die, that seemed reasonable to Dean – let _anyone_ else die as long as Sam lived.

Then sometime after 2am, at long last Sam emerged from the operating theatre, a mess of tubes and lines trailing from his comatose body as they wheeled the gurney up to intensive care. Dean grabbed the short silver haired surgeon's arm, ignoring the man's obvious weariness in his urgent need for information.

"Your partner is stable, Mr Macey. He was a very lucky man. The branch had missed most of his major organs on its passage through his torso, though it did considerable damage the smaller left lobe of his liver, and pierced the upper part of his stomach. We were able to remove all the splinters and close up the wound successfully - I think the risk of infection is now as low as we could get it. But it was a significant trauma, and a very long operation, so he is unlikely to regain consciousness for many hours. You should be aware that here is still the risk that the amount of trauma was too great, in cases like this the shock alone…if he has family you should contact them…"

Dean interrupted angrily, ignoring the comment about family with practiced ease.

"Don't you say he could still die – Sammy is a fighter. And I don't care how long it takes. I'll stay with him until he wakes up."

Dean was ready to follow Sam's gurney when his cell phone rang. The temptation to ignore it was overwhelming, but he was tormented by Sam's voice in the back of his mind admonishing him. His little brother, his conscience personified. _It might be important, Dean._ Somebody's life could be at stake, and Sam would never forgive him if he allowed an innocent person to die just because he desperately needed to be there see Sam wake up.

So with great reluctance, Dean flipped open the phone and growled "Yep?"

_Son of a bitch._ It was the cinema manager, Teddy Tuijl, and he was nigh on hysterical. It took Dean several minutes to calm the man into some semblance of coherence and several more to squeeze out any meaningful details. Though Dean wasn't sure meaningful was the right word for Teddy's disjointed and confused ramblings about strange noises and voices being carried on the wind off the sea.

Teddy had gone home after seeing Dean and Sam safely into the ambulance, and from what Dean gathered, had proceeded to get plastered. It was difficult to tell if Teddy was still ten sheets to the wind or if his current state of abject terror was justified and had served to sober him up, but Dean knew he didn't have any choice but to go and find out. Swearing colourfully under his breath, Dean shrugged back into his FBI identity with an effort, and virtually ran to the Impala. The sooner he sorted this idiot out, the sooner he could get back to Sam.

********

The Lewes night was very quiet, especially after Dean turned the keys and silenced the Chevy's deep grumble that was just an echo of his own protesting spirit. He approached the front door of Teddy Tuijl's weather-boarded single story house, taking the porch steps two at a time. Teddy's house was the last one along the coast road before the dunes began and in the summer must have been a beautiful idyllic location, facing the beach across the road with fine views of the wide sweep of the bay. All of which was entirely lost on an emotionally exhausted Dean at two in the morning. He hammered impatiently on the door which was opened with excessive caution by a white faced trembling Tuijl. With irritation Dean muscled past the skinny cinema manager then turned aggressively to face him.

"Okay, I'm here. What's going on?" _This little weed had better not be wasting his time_.

Tuijl clearly couldn't decide which he found more terrifying, Dean's green glare glittering in his security light, or the reason he'd called the intimidating FBI agent over here in the first place. Dean waited with growing exasperation as the nervous manager stammered and stuttered without actually getting to the point. He could see that his belligerent attitude was making things worse but couldn't seem to curb or conceal his annoyance at this irritating little man who was keeping him from his brother's side.

Teddy opened his mouth to stammer out his explanation of what he had been hearing, but was saved the trouble when a strange wailing began to waft towards them over the sound of the waves on the shore a few yards across the coast road. Teddy pointed a shaking finger at the sea.

"There, that's what I mean! What _is_ that noise, man?"

Dean stared out into the darkness, puzzled. It sounded like several voices weaving together, moaning and crying out in pain. It was like nothing he had ever come across before, and that was saying something, given the breadth of his experience with the unnatural. Whatever it was, it was definitely not a natural phenomena, and Dean decided he had been somewhat inattentive and possibly downright foolish to have rushed up to Teddy Tuijl's house armed with nothing but his colt 1911 and a knife down his boot. He started to make his way back down Teddy's porch steps to raid the Impala's arsenal, when he was blindsided by a massive gust of wind that swirled around him like a dark mini tornado. The wind itself might not have been so bad, but it was carrying what felt like several tons of beach with it, and he was instantly blinded and virtually suffocated by masses of stinging sand. It was everywhere, and the voices were inside the wind, roaring and screaming inside his head. He covered his ears and closed his stinging eyes, still staggering down the steps as best he could, trying to make for where he thought his car was parked, though to be honest, he had no idea now where he was going, or even if he was still facing in the right direction. The wailing was deafening, and the wind was abrading his exposed skin like sandpaper. He thought he heard Teddy screaming, but wasn't sure if it was him or the spirits in the wind. Then another gust caught him, picked him up as if in giant hands and flung him headlong into something very hard and unyielding. Probably not a gravestone, for a change, as he wasn't in a cemetery, but whatever the hell it was, it knocked all remaining sense out of him with a flash of blinding pain.

********

_They really should start maxing out their fraudulent credit cards on a better class of motel_, Dean thought. _This bed was hard as fucking concrete and the room had a freezing draught._

He realised several things simultaneously. Firstly – this was not a bed, it _was_ concrete. Second, it was cold because he was outdoors. Third, his face was resting in a puddle of something unpleasantly damp and sticky. Fourth, his head was aching like a mother. Fifth, his mouth and nose seemed to be filled with sand. Sixth, he had the strongest feeling he should be somewhere else right now but was having trouble remembering where and why. In fact, he was having trouble stringing two thoughts together at the moment and had lost count to boot.

He choked and coughed, horrible racking coughs that had him curled up where he lay and made his headache spike so that bright white light jabbed him in both closed eyes. As the spasms quietened he remembered where he should be and clearly wasn't. _Sam. The hospital_. This last thought galvanised him into action and he managed to make it onto his hands and knees where he risked opening his eyes. Well, his right eye, anyway. The left eye seemed to be glued shut with whatever damp stickness his head had been resting in. He rubbed at the offending eye and his hand came away bloody. Ah. His brain was being agonisingly slow to compute, but was now starting to catch up. Clearly he had a concussion resulting from a split head. So what was new in Winchester World? That would explain his sudden overwhelming urge to throw up but it didn't explain why he seemed to be covered with sand, to have sand in virtually every orifice.

Moving very slowly to avoid the waves of nausea that swept through his stomach every time he moved his head, Dean sat back on his haunches and tried to focus his blurred vision. He was on a driveway, in front was a road and then beyond the road was a beach and the sea. _So that explained the sand, didn't it?_ Somehow he felt there was something missing from that simple equation but his thoughts seemed to be skittering around like nervous wild horses, reluctant to be roped in, so he couldn't be sure. There was the Impala, a gleaming black silhouette against a dawn sky that would not have looked out of place as a painted backdrop in Gone With the Wind, all reds and oranges and deep cerise pinks. Finally a firm memory of last night allowed itself to be lassoed, saddled, bridled and ridden back into his addled head. Teddy had called him screaming about voices, then when he'd arrived said voices had started and…and where was the annoying little cinema manager anyway? That was when Dean saw him. A pathetic crumpled figure looking for all the world like an abandoned rag doll lying at the foot of his own white painted porch steps, dropped there by some capricious child. _Oh no. Dammit_. The man might have been a bit irritating but didn't deserve to be so very dead.

Dean staggered to his feet, feeling like an old, old man. Reluctantly, he stumbled over to the house, and knelt heavily next to the motionless sprawled figure, still half hoping that his trembling fingers would find a pulse beating in the thin cinema manager, even though he could see from the unnatural angle of the young man's neck that it had been snapped nearly in two. _Shit._ The older Winchester sighed heavily. Shivering in his thin black FBI suit, he fumbled in his pocket for his cell phone and with stiff fingers managed to dial the Sheriff. Someone had to deal with this mess so he could get back to the hospital and check on Sam. He'd been away too long as it was, and anxiety for his brother was gripping his heart like a vice. Whatever had attacked them last night was long gone and would have to wait. Dean would tackle that malicious son of a bitch (or was it sons of bitches? He thought he remembered many voices on that sand-storm wind…) as soon as he was certain Sammy was going to be okay.

When he got to his feet again after filling in a weary sounding Sheriff Sutcliffe on the situation, he discovered that perhaps his idea of driving back to the hospital was a little ambitious. His legs wobbled worse than blue hospital jello and he actually only managed two steps towards his car before they both decided enough was enough and went on strike altogether. His head joined his legs in protest and Sheriff Sutcliffe – call me Eric – drew up just in time to see Special Agent Macey face-plant onto Teddy Tuijl's concrete drive for the second time in as many hours.

********

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far - look forward to hearing what you think of it so far!


	4. Chapter 4

_The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there...as Sam is about to find out_

********

A cool breeze caressed his cheek and he was soothed by the gentle rhythmic sound of waves breaking onto soft sand. In the distance, for a little while, Sam could hear the low murmur of his brother's deep voice interwoven with the swell and crash of the sea, telling him everything was going to be okay. He wondered for a moment why things _wouldn't_ be okay, before he awoke with a start. Sam sat bolt upright, staring round completely baffled. He was on a beach, the grey ocean on his left, a bright white flash of seagulls wheeling overhead in an overcast, grey sky. On his right stretched an expanse of dunes as far south as he could see. The sea breeze whispered in the grey-green marram grasses that bound the sand together into steep mounds, obscuring the view of whatever lay beyond on the landward side. He could taste salt on his lips.

Sam clambered to his feet, gingerly because his stomach and back were aching like a bitch, though when he lifted his dark blue t shirt to examine himself, he couldn't see any injuries to explain the pain. Strange. He thought he could remember something bad happening, he and Dean had been someplace dark and then…He shook his head in frustration. Whatever memory he had almost captured slipped away from him as he drew himself to his full height and gazed around. Empty sand, empty sea as far as the eye could see. There was no sign of the town of Lewes, or any human habitation at all, and aside from the rhythmic breathing susurration of the waves, the rustle of the wind in the grasses and the mewling cries of the gulls, the world seemed unnaturally quiet to Sam, devoid of roads and cars and the bustle of human life.

Where the hell was he? And where was Dean?

"Sam Winchester."

A deep voice from behind him made Sam start and instinctively assume a defensive stance as he whirled around to face its owner. His hazel eyes widened as he took in the figure of a tall slim man who had managed to get within arm's reach of him, yet he hadn't heard anyone approaching. The stranger's high cheek bones and dark fathomless eyes, his copper-brown skin and long dark hair clearly marked the man as native American Indian. Sam was surprised to see that the man was wearing a complete outfit of traditional decorated deerskin robes, as if he had just come from some sort of ceremony.

"What…who are you? Where am I and how did I get here?" Sam demanded, his voice hoarse with shock. He wished he had a weapon, couldn't understand how he could have come out seemingly totally unarmed. Since leaving Stanford, to go anywhere without carrying a gun or at least a knife left Sam feeling almost naked.

The man didn't move any closer, just stood with a loose-limbed predatory stillness that felt like something very natural; it reminded Sam of a big cat he'd seen when Dean had taken him to a zoo somewhere when they were both just kids. He thought it might have been a leopard, then abruptly wondered why he was letting his thoughts meander like this. _Focus, Sam, focus!_ He stared into the stranger's dark eyes, willing him to provide answers. Unconsciously he held one hand over his stomach, rubbing at the dull ache that just wouldn't seem to go away.

After a moment, the man finally responded. "My name is Tamanend. Come with me, Sam Winchester. There is something you need to see." He turned his back on the puzzled young hunter and began to walk away, slowly climbing the dunes without ever looking back to see if he was being followed. Sam stood for a moment, gaping, not knowing what to do. He shut his mouth with a snap, and giving a kind of mental shrug, trudged through the fine shifting sands after the man, noticing with envy how the sand that sucked at his every step didn't seem to hinder the lighter stepping stranger. The trouble was that ache in his gut seemed to be growing with every step, so much so that by the time he finally reached the top of the dune, he was struggling for every breath, and his t shirt was drenched in sweat that was rapidly chilling in the cool sea breeze. Almost doubled up clutching his abdominal muscles and breathing heavily, Sam took a moment or two to recover, wondering what on earth was wrong with him to have him feeling so weak and vulnerable. He felt a strong hand warm on his shoulder and made an effort to pull himself together. He straightened to his full height and found himself eye to eye with the stranger called Tamanend. He thought he'd heard that name before, but couldn't seem to gather his scattered thoughts together enough to remember where, or why it might be significant.

Sam couldn't stop shivering but straightened his back, thinking that Dean would be really annoyed with his lack of wariness with this man who was very likely something supernatural and therefore, in Dean's book, something to at the very least distrust, if not kill without asking questions. He frowned at the thought, almost hearing Dean's voice in his head. He frowned at the squirming his inner Dean's Dad-like tones engendered and met them with a matching annoyance of his own. _Shut up Dean. You aren't here (and where the hell are you, bro?) and this guy feels – _right. He thought he heard Dean scoffing – "What - your psychic mojo's _reading_ people now is it, geek boy?"

He was startled when Tamanend interrupted this inner dialogue as if he'd heard every word of Sam's silent conversation with his absent brother.

"You are concerned that you feel you can trust me, where perhaps you should not."

"I…Yes. I don't know who you are or why I am here, but…"

"You can trust your instincts, Sam Winchester. I am here to help you and your brother end this."

Tamanend gestured to the west as Sam opened his mouth to ask him – _end what_? He closed it slowly as he saw an impossible scene unfolding only a few yards away, in what had only a second before been an empty windswept landscape.

The low sweep of the land past the windbreak of the dunes was now interrupted by a small cluster of wooden buildings within a rough and ready wooden palisade, surrounded by what looked like small garden plots. Low fences surrounded vegetable patches, and a few scrawny chickens were roaming loose, scratching at the bare earthen paths for scraps and seeds. A skinny yellow dog brushed panting past Sam's leg, closely followed by a young boy dressed all in dark browns and earthen colours. Neither the boy or the dog seemed to see Sam or his enigmatic companion.

Sam shifted uncomfortably and rubbed at his stomach again, grimacing with pain. "What is going on? Where is this place? Am I dreaming?"

Tamanend raised a slim brown hand and shook his head. "This is the place the people you know as the Dutch called Zwaanendael. You are here to witness, and to learn."

With an effort he squashed down both his incredulity and his pain and did as the Indian instructed, he watched.

He watched as the arrival of the young boy and his dog in the strange, ancient looking village seemed to wake it from whatever limbo it had been suspended in, and instantly come to life.

Several men in old fashioned costumes came out of one of the larger timber buildings. Two of them had long heavy looking muskets resting on their shoulders, while one man who looked to be more richly dressed than the others, with a bright orange sash worn diagonally across his chest, seemed to be carrying a sword. They approached a small group of dark haired native American who were standing near the entrance to the palisade. The European men seemed agitated and there was much gesturing and arm waving before the small group of Indians finally turned around and left. Sam felt dizzy as time suddenly seemed to speed up and the sun tracked across the sky twice as if he was standing in one of those stop motion nature documentaries that show flowers growing. Tamenend's warm body was a solid presence by his side and he was hard pressed not to lean against the tall man as eventually time slowed again and he saw –

The same group of Indians return to the fort carrying the dead body of another Indian man into the fort, where they were greeted by a group of the European men, who seemed somewhat disconcerted by this strange and grizzly gift.

Time speeded up again and another two days passed as swiftly and disorientatingly as before.

Then as time ran slowly again, the European men (and one or two women) were working in their fields outside the palisade as a different group of Indians arrived and entered the open gates. From their elevated position, Sam could see this new group enter one of the buildings, watched as they dragged out a portly European man, who he thought might have been the man he'd seen wearing the orange sash, and bludgeoned him to death in the dirt outside his door as he was kneeling, screaming for mercy. He watched helpless as several of the raiding party ran outside the palisade and attacked the unarmed men working in the fields, as one by one the settlers were killed with a swift ruthlessness, women and children, and even the yellow dog that had run past him only moments before.

The raiders dragged the bodies of the settlers, some thirty or so, Sam thought, into a heap outside the palisade, close to the foot of the dunes. They then busied themselves scalping all of the dead men, grinning and holding up their bloody trophies.

A lone tall man approached the celebrating group and Sam could see him remonstrating with them. He glanced sideways as he suddenly thought he recognised the newcomer as a younger version of the man who was standing sombre and silent beside him. Tamanend returned his look and nodded at Sam's unspoken question.

As Sam watched the young Tamanend take all of the bloody scalps and place them in a long tubular container that looked a bit like a quiver, the older man began to explain.

"I was young and foolish, but I knew that killing those Dutch settlers was a wrong act. I took their scalps containing their captured spirits, and placed them in a parfleche for safekeeping. I buried it there, on the site of their deaths, and my people left that place alone."

Time speeded up again as Tamanend was speaking, and this time, many years passed and Sam saw how the shape of the coast line had changed, how the dunes moved so that the settlers bones were first covered, then exposed again, but this time on the unprotected side, open to the action of the sea, that gradually took all the remains and ground them into the fine yellow sand that formed the Lewes beach and dunes of today. He watched as the timber fort and settlement of Zwaanendael decayed and was lost, and the newer settlement of Lewes sprang up a few miles down the coast, then gradually expanded, coming closer and closer to the place where the young Tamanend had buried the parfleche full of scalps. Realised that the new building whose foundations were being dug right over the burial site was the Marsh Movie Theatre, saw the skinny figure of Teddy Tuijl poring over the architects plans, striding around in agitation when construction workers showed him the strange ancient Indian artefact they'd found while digging, saw him waving them to carry on and taking the parfleche and its potentially deadly contents away.

The grinding ache in Sam's stomach was unrelenting, and seemed to be spreading right through his torso. Now his whole back was afire, so once again he was having difficulty breathing. It was getting harder and harder to concentrate on anything other than managing the pain. As events unfolded in front of him, the younger Winchester wrapped both arms around his middle in an attempt to squeeze away the pain. It wasn't working. Tamanend was looking at him with an expression of deep compassion that, given the circumstances, Sam found intensely irritating. _God, I'm turning into my brother_, he thought, gritting his teeth.

Tamanend reached out a hand and gently touched two fingers to Sam's pale sweating cheek, in a gesture reminiscent of Castiel. At the touch, a cooling release seemed to spread through the big man's body, and he sighed with relief. Hazel eyes met deep brown, and he felt as though he was drowning in their depths. Frowning with renewed puzzlement, Sam was almost too embarrassed to ask, but the question just slipped out anyway. "Are you an angel?"

The Indian laughed, a very human sound, his severe angular face creasing up with a huge grin of genuine amusement.

"No, Sam Winchester, I am no angel." The smile seemed to linger in the corners of Tamanend's eyes even as a look of sadness replaced the laughter. "I am merely a man of peace. _Was_ a man of peace."

Sam felt a darkness gathering around him as Tamanend was speaking, and his legs started to collapse beneath him as the sounds of the waves and the wind began to fade. Yet somehow, Sam was unconcerned. He trusted this man and knew he was going home.

*******

The first thing Sam became aware of was that the nature of the air touching his face had changed. The fresh cool smell of salt and sand was gone as if it had never been, replaced by air that was hot, stale and dry, and smelled sterile, antiseptic. The second thing he noticed was that the debilitating aching pain had gone, replaced by a swimming giddy numbness he recognised after a few seconds as the all too familiar gift of morphine. The third and most important thing that awareness brought him was a feeling of glowing nervous energy nearby, the source of which he recognised instantly. _Dean_.

He forgot his strangely vivid dream in that instant, was left instead with a feeling of knowing something important, but that he was too tired and happy to worry about it yet.

His eyes were glued together so firmly, his lids so heavy it took several attempts to crack them open, but Winchester determination saw him through. Finally he opened his eyes, forced them to focus on the bundle of raw nerves that was Dean. He saw his brother's face light up as the older Winchester was instantly aware that he was awake and swift as thought left his post by the window. In a stride Dean was next to Sam's bed. Dispassionately, Sam thought Dean looked terrible. His brother's face was too pale, his chin covered in what appeared to be several days growth of stubble that was bordering on a reddish gold beard, and he had a large white dressing on his forehead that indicated he had not been looking after himself while Sam was not there to watch his back. Sam tutted silently.

"Hey, Sammy."

Sam smiled. Swallowed past what felt like a whole beachful of sand. Whispered. "You look like crap."

"Thanks, dude. Right back attcha."

Sam might be drugged up to his eyeballs but he could read Dean easier than a child's ABC.

"Don't." He said. Dean raised an eyebrow quizzically. Feigned ignorance, badly.

"Wasn't your fault… If it hadn't been me in the way of that 3D branch it would have been you, or somebody else – a civilian."

Dean flushed, then rubbed a hand over his tired face in that characteristic gesture he used to rub way bad thoughts. It never worked.

"And don't say you wish it had been you instead of me, please, just….don't."

"Sammy…" Dean hesitated and swallowed, suddenly seeming to be having as much difficulty as Sam was getting words past dry lips. Whatever he had been going to say, Sam could see him bite the words back. He watched with amusement as Dean adroitly avoided an emotional minefield and changed tack.

"Teddy Tuijl is dead."

Sam raised his eyebrows, which proved more taxing than he thought could be possible. In fact, interested though he was in this tantalising new snippet of information, and the fact that this definitely linked with that now elusive feeling of _knowing_ something important, the whole effort of staying awake was proving too much for him. Reluctantly Sam closed his heavy eyelids again and let sleep take him. At least he could sleep peacefully in the knowledge that Dean was watching over him.

*******

_Reviews are my lifeblood (not literally obviously - but very nice to have) - let me know what you think!_


	5. Chapter 5

********

Sam had no idea how long it was before he surfaced again. It would have been minutes or hours. It was still daylight, though for all he knew, it could have been a different day entirely. His eyes once again sought out and found his brother, who was seated this time, slumped wearily in a chair next to his bedside. Sam thought Dean might be sleeping, but if he had been, the older Winchester was so tuned into his kid brother's breathing he reacted instantly he noticed Sam was awake, sitting upright and fixing his game face on with a ready smile. Even in his barely awake, drugged state, Sam found it unconvincing. Dean's case wasn't helped by the fact that he still looked like death warmed up, and it was pretty obvious he hadn't slept much, if at all, since Sam was last awake.

"You're back with us, then." Dean's voice was rough with the unexpressed emotion that his cheerful mask could not hide. Sam got a measure of how much morphine must be in his system when he felt his own eyes filling with ready tears. Quickly he mustered up his sense of humour and sent it to rescue both brothers from these dangerous emotions before it could degenerate into one of those dreaded chick flick moments, and embarrass the hell out of both of them.

"You know, we need to be careful of this dangerous co-dependency…" He was rewarded with a genuine snort of laughter from Dean.

"What happened to you?" Sam tried to gesture towards Dean's patched up head, but his hand felt as though every tendon was wrapped in lead and all he managed was a feeble twitch of his fingers. "Was I dreaming, or did you say that Teddy Tuijl was dead?"

His big brother's face hardened into a grim cast as he nodded.

"Are you sure you are up to this?" Dean asked. "Coz last time we spoke you fell asleep on me, dude."

Sam nodded, asked Dean to hand him a glass of water and begin talking. He had a feeling that whatever it was that was still there nagging away at the back of his mind had something to do with the job they were working, and he hoped that listening to his brother would help clear the fog in his head that the painkillers had induced.

Feeling more awake by the minute, Sam listened attentively as Dean told him about Teddy's panicked phone call and their subsequent encounter with the sand-storm full of voices that had left the hapless cinema manager dead on his own front porch, and Dean with seven stitches in his forehead. Something was niggling away at the younger Winchester, like a toothache. He knew he was missing something crucial about this case, but couldn't figure out why he should think so. It just didn't make sense. Why should he feel there was something he had forgotten, when there had been no time to have learnt anything new in between the last research he had done about James Sergeant, and ending up in here with a six foot long lump of tree through his belly?

He needed his laptop, his long fingers were just itching to get tapping at that keyboard and search the whole world via the web to pin down that elusive fact that was hovering just out of sight.

After a bit of an argument about whether Sam should be researching when he had just virtually come back from the dead, Dean finally agreed to fetch Sam's computer from the Moby Dick room. Sam lay back with a smug sense of satisfaction at having persuaded Dean not only to fetch his computer, but also to promise he'd grab a couple of hours sleep under the beady gaze of the strange whale mural. It was a major victory to get his stubborn brother to admit he hadn't rested or eaten more than a Hershey bar since he had returned to Sam's bedside after getting his head stitched up in the ER hours ago, and Sam was smiling as he allowed sleep to claim him once again.

By the time Dean returned with the laptop a few hours later, Sam was wide awake, and having his dressings checked by a remarkably pretty nurse. He was pleased to see that not only did his brother look more rested, having at last got round to shaving off his incipient face fuzz, but he was obviously feeling more chirpy too, as evidenced by his eagerness to deploy the patented Dean Winchester charm offensive on the young woman. Hazel eyes glinting green and gold were turned on full beam and left her blushing and giggling as she departed Sam's room. The younger Winchester allowed himself a little smile.

Dean settled the laptop onto the wheeled table so Sam could reach it and dragged the bedside chair over so he could be as annoying as possible looking over Sam's shoulder as he started to search for anything that would explain this annoying, nagging feeling of forgetting that was still poking him in the back, demanding attention worse than any pain from his injuries. Something to do with Dean's voices, the sand-filled wind, and images of the beach and dunes Dean had described that were haunting him even though he had never actually been there…And there was something else that was eluding him, he just knew it. Honing his attention down to the computer screen, soon he was concentrating so hard, he barely noticed Dean fussing with the pillows that were propping him up, or his brother's comical disappointment at the male nurse who returned to make adjustments to his meds, or Dean taking a time out to flirt with the pretty female nurse when she came back with a new bag of whatever wonderfully nutritious gloop it was he was being fed with through the tube up his nose.

Then he had it – the trigger he'd been searching for. By accident Sam had stumbled upon a web page on the history of Lewes that Dean had bookmarked earlier while carrying out his more random flitting around the internet-ether, and in the narrative was a name he recognised. Tamanend or Tammaney.

It was as if a wall had been demolished in his mind, and suddenly he was overwhelmed with a flood of images that made him gasp out loud and brought Dean's attention fully back on him, the distracting attractions of the pretty nurse completely forgotten.

"Sammy! What is it? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I just remembered something important that might help us with this the case, Dean." Sam shot his brother a significant look and Dean immediately understood. The older hunter quickly ushered the curious and very disappointed nurse out of the room – _FBI business, sweetheart_ – and returned to listen to the details of the vision his little brother had had while Dean had been getting his ass whupped by a sand storm yesterday. It was a strange tale.

"So what, you're telling me you've been on some sort of soul plane with a 17th century version of Jennie Lopez..."

"Tamanend was a Lenni Lenape Indian, Dean. And I think it was a soul flight or spirit journey."

"Yeah, whatever. Man, could our lives get any weirder?"

Sam snorted his agreement with that statement, then wished he hadn't as a twinge of pain shot through him that even the morphine drip couldn't mask. Perhaps he had been working on this too long. Dean had picked up on Sam's involuntary flinch and obviously come to the same conclusion. He pressed a firm hand on Sam's shoulder, and gently pushed the younger man back into the soft pillows.

"I think you've done enough research for one day, bro'. You rest now, and I'll give Bobby a call about this quiver thing and see if he's got any ideas on how to deal with it…"

"Parfleche, Dean…" Sam mumbled tiredly, but anxious Dean didn't forget any of the important details.

"Yeah, Sammy, parfleche – I got it."

Sam sank back into the warm comfort of the bed, feeling the drugs begin to cloud his thoughts again. The nurse must have upped the dose, probably at his brother's request, but Sam was too grateful for the relief it was bringing to resent the interference. Then another concern struck him and he struggled briefly back to consciousness.

"D'n…ask 'bout the sand…"

"Dude, I got it, sand, whirlwinds, Indians, parfleche. Now shut up and go to sleep!"

Sam found he didn't have the energy to resist, and allowed his eyelids to close as his brother's deep voice on the cell phone to Bobby accompanied him back into sleep.

"What I don't understand, Bobby, if how those spirits could come after me and Teddy at his place. The attack at the cinema makes some kinda sense, but the one over at Teddy's house, that was way off normal angry spirit behaviour."

"Right son, first things first. You need to find out where Teddy stashed that parfleche, and salt and burn it before anyone else gets hurt. I'll dig around and see if I can find out why this settler's spirit doesn't seem to be following the usual rules – it should be tied to the parfleche's location or at least to the site of its burial. The rest of the remains must be scattered who knows where after the sea took 'em. Of course, it could be that our cinema manager took the damn thing home and has it in a closet somewhere."

Dean absently rubbed his forehead, then winced as the action pulled at his stitches. "Teddy's place will probably be locked down as a crime scene now, though maybe the Sheriff will have this pegged as natural causes…either way, I think I'd better pay my friend Eric a visit first. Maybe he will be able to fill me in on this Lena Lopez stuff and save me a search of the dead man's house."

"Lenni Lenape, Dean…"

"Yeah yeah, Bobby, you're as bad as sleeping beauty geek boy here…"

*******

The thing about sand is, it gets everywhere. Sam and Dean had missed out on learning this interesting and uncomfortable fact during their childhood. Not only had they spent most of their time in the mid west many miles away from the kind of large bodies of water that might entertain sandy beaches, but there had been very few occasions for the kind of playful exploration embodied in spending hours of messing about on beaches building sand castles and burying your siblings up to their necks just for fun. The kind of sand you encounter in deserts isn't really the sort kids play with. Besides, the Winchester idea of fun had been learning to shoot salt loaded shotguns, or practising hand to hand combat in the remote back-lots of seedy motels.

So when Dean had returned to the Marine Motel and changed out of his FBI suit, showered and shaved and slept like the dead for two hours, it never occurred to him to do anything more than give the black suit a shake and change into a clean shirt before reassuming his Federal identity to return to the hospital and to Sam. He hadn't noticed the grains of silver sand that escaped the shaking, lingering in the bottoms of the suit pockets, mingling with the ubiquitous grey-blue fluff that always mysteriously appears from nowhere in the seams of clothing. So Dean in blissful ignorance, carried his own little souvenir of Lewes beach with him when he went to call on Sheriff Eric Sutcliffe, and even left a small offering of glittering sand sprinkled on the blanket of Sam's hospital bed.

*******

Dean found Sheriff Sutcliffe in his office still working hard, looking even more harassed than he had when the Winchesters had first arrived in Lewes, if that was possible. When Eric greeted his FBI saviour with such blatant relief, Dean's earlier decision to take the man into his confidence about Teddy Tuijl's death being an unnatural one wavered. Perhaps he could get Eric to help without worrying him too much with details he really wouldn't want to know? Though it might be difficult to explain why this ancient history stuff was so important, without touching on visions and spirits and the kind of weirdness Dean knew was likely to freak this friendly guy out. Well, to be fair, it was the kind of shit that would freak out anyone halfway normal.

"Sheriff.."

"Eric, please, Agent Macey."

"Er, yeah, Eric. Something has come to our attention and we think it might have a bearing on this case. I understand that when the movie theatre was being built, they found a native American Indian artefact, a parfleche? You know anything about that?"

Eric was looking puzzled but simultaneously eager to help. "Yes, that's right. Teddy was very concerned when the building contractors found it. He was worried that it might delay construction with archaeologists coming in and more planning regulations to meet and so on. He did try and hush it up at first, but one of the workmen who uncovered it was a native American (Navajo actually) and he made sure that Teddy did the right thing and reported the find."

Dean thought that this enforced honesty on Teddy's part didn't bode well for the parfleche being in easy reach – like in a closet in the cinema manager's house - but he pressed on with his questioning.

"Okay, so what happened to the artefact after the find was reported?"

"Well, the authorities were interested but said they didn't have anyone to come all the way over here just yet to examine it. The tribe who were here when the first settlers arrived were the Lenni Lenape, but they moved away from this area, squeezed out by white settlers. Some went up north to New Jersey but most of them ended up in Oklahoma. The Indian guy who found the parfleche said he thought it was likely left there, buried, you know, by these original Lenape guys, so the City Administration contacted the Oklahoma Lenape who said they will send someone over to look at it as soon as they can."

"Right, so where's the parfleche now then?" Dean tried to curb his impatience at the rambling history lesson, some of which he'd already sat through with Sam, when all he really wanted to know was how to get hold of the damn thing and destroy it.

"Well, they said it was old, and kinda fragile, so we asked the College to see if they had somewhere it could be kept safe."

"Lewes has a college?"

"Yes, it's part of the University of Delaware, a marine research centre, you know earth and ocean and stuff like that."

A marine research centre? Dean hadn't seen that coming.

His mind was already leaping ahead, wondering how he could get in there and get hold of this pesky parfleche when he realised Eric was still talking.

"So, why do you think this parfleche is so important, Agent Macey?"

Dean was saved from the need to reply by the sounds of Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water emanating from his pocket. He gave Eric an apologetic glance and excused himself to answer the call. It was Bobby.

"Dean, you have to destroy that parfleche and quickly as you can."

The young hunter bristled, what did Bobby think he was doing here, dancing a tango? Before he could voice a protest, the older man continued. "I think the problem is being amplified by the fact that the parfleche contains the scalps of all the male settlers. So what you are dealing with here is multiple spirits, all reinforced by the Indians' belief that the scalps contain the person's life force. And on top of that, as far as I can make out, Valentine's Day is the most probable anniversary of the murder of the Dutch settlers, so they are likely to be getting pretty pissed in the build up to that."

"Well, that's just peachy. At least I know where this parfleche thing is now, apparently they've got it locked away at the University's marine research centre here in Lewes." Dean lowered his voice and moved away in an attempt to get out of Eric's earshot. "So are you thinking the fact that we are dealing with more than one spirit accounts for the way they were able to reach me and Teddy so far away from either the parfleche or the burial site?"

"Maybe son, I'm not sure on that one. But we are talking about ten spirits, possibly more. The sources aren't clear on how many of the thirty two settlers were women and children, and how many were adult men."

"Well, Sam said he only saw a couple of women and some kids, didn't sound like many, so there could be more than twenty spirits here." Dean rolled his eyes to the heavens and sighed. "Jeeze Bobby, that's just crazy. What the hell happens if they all come at me at once? And it's Valentine's Day tomorrow." He looked across the room at the anxious expression on Sheriff Eric's kind face as he pretended to be busy with some paperwork. "Man, this sucks out loud." _But with Sam out of action and Bobby stuck in South Dakota, I need all the help I can get, and it looks like Sheriff 'Just Call Me Eric' might be my only hope here…._

He terminated the call with the older hunter and squared his shoulders. Time for a heart to heart with Sheriff Sutcliffe. Dean just hoped his new friend Eric would believe him, because even with the Sheriff as backup, this was still going to be one of the most dangerous assignments the older Winchester brother had ever faced.

******

Bobby hung up the phone and stared at it in frustration. His boys were in trouble and he was helpless, stuck in his damned wheelchair hundreds of miles away. He chewed at his moustache, trying to think if there was any hunter that they could trust who was close enough to be of any use. Dammit, but this whole demon-blood apocalypse thing had really stuffed them up big time as far as the hunting community were concerned. The Winchester name was mud in some circles and the number of allies they had, who knew the truth and were willing to defend them against the misconceptions and rumours, were few and far between – and the best of them were long dead and sorely missed.

He wheeled himself back into his study, chucked another log onto the fire and gave it a vicious jab with the iron poker, sending flames and sparks shooting up the chimney. He glanced over his shoulder at the heap of open books on his desk and nearly groaned out loud. Was that really all he was good for these days? Endless research, just a human computer? _Oh, get a grip Robert Singer._ His inner voice was, as usual, merciless. _Self pity is so unattractive, don't you think?_

A thought struck him. "Yeah, and distracting - Idjit!" he growled as he rolled back to the telephone, wishing that he'd taken Dean's advice and bought himself a cell phone to keep in his pocket, as he was gripped by a sudden urgency. He dialled and waited impatiently for the call to connect.

"Castiel? It's Bobby Singer. Dean needs your help."

******

A/N: The end is in sight but I think Dean and Sam might have a little more mild peril before this is all over.....

Reviews are wonderfull, I will reward you all with virtual cookies of great magnificence xxx


	6. Chapter 6

******

Sheriff Sutcliffe was looking grim but determined, and Dean was quietly proud of the guy. He'd taken the sheer craziness of Dean's explanation surprisingly well, and seemed quite happy with the idea of wielding a salt gun instead of his usual side arm as they approached the gleaming white building that housed the University marine research centre.

"Some of their research is international, and they quite often work odd hours conferencing with colleagues across the globe," Eric was explaining as they walked through the automatic doors and he waved a greeting to the security guard manning the reception desk. Dean shifted his duffle on his shoulder and frowned as he looked around.

"So this place could still be full of professors and students even at 7pm?"

Eric nodded and led the way towards the laboratory where the parfleche was being kept. "Yes, there are usually at least a handful of people here, sometimes all night. Why, is that a problem?"

Dean's frown deepened. "A problem, yeah. These spirits have been dead for centuries and whatever humanity they had was stripped away years ago. All they know when they wake up is rage and hate, and they ain't gonna care who they turn on. We're going to need to get everyone out of here…" He paused as the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and he saw his breath plume out in the suddenly frigid air in front of his face. Swiftly he pulled the shotguns and fistfuls of salt-loaded cartridges out of the duffel and readied the gun on his shoulder. Eric followed his lead and did the same.  
"Shit. They're here."

The room they were looking for was just ahead on the right, but Dean could see that already there were at least two spectral figures between them and their target. Whirling around to look back the way they had come, he saw a mini tornado of swirling sand slowly coagulating into human sized shapes. Sand again, he thought, puzzled, as the chilly wind the spirits were creating lifted his leather jacket so it flapped against his sides like a bird's wings. He yelled at the Sheriff over the growing noise, "Get my back, Eric, and fire the salt at them as quick as you can: just keep firing!" The Sheriff didn't hesitate and Dean was glad to feel solid warmth at his back, even though it wasn't Sam. As he fired off his first blast of salt, he reached out with his left elbow and broke the glass on the fire alarm he'd spotted on the wall. The shrilling of the alarm joined the roaring of the ghostly wind and the blasts from the shotguns in a mounting cacophony. The building had to be evacuated and that seemed the quickest way of ensuring everyone got out, especially as it seemed likely that he was going to be a bit busy for the next little while. He hadn't counted on some of those innocent civilians being in the very room they were headed for, and was nonplussed when he heard a door opening right behind him, followed by screaming as the small group of scientists exited straight out of the lab into the noisy ghostly chaos in the corridor.

Dean was getting mad. He knew his plan was not the best plan in the world, but it had been the only one he had, and even that couldn't go without a hitch, could it. No, of course not, because, in Winchester World, fuck-ups are the norm. Not only did he now have a bunch of panicking civilians to worry about, the damn salt didn't seem to be working like it should. What the hell was up with these ghosts?

******

Tall handsome Tamenend was in Sam's dream, but Sam was having trouble working out what the Indian leader was saying. There were other voices that were getting louder, drowning out the deep tones of the quietly spoken man with a howling shrieking that sounded like a storm wind. At the same time, he could hear the monitors by his bed bleeping, and the soft rustling of one of the nurses moving round his bedside, filling in his chart. The woman was talking to him as if he was a sick child.

"So, Sam, how did you get all this dirt on your blanket? I bet that was your partner, he looked as though he'd come in here straight off the beach when he visited you the other day – look at this, there is sand everywhere…"

Sand. Sand everywhere.

Suddenly Tamanend's voice in his head became clear, as if someone had tuned the dial on a radio to finally get the right station. "The sand is full of salt, Sam Winchester, because those corpses were swallowed up and crushed by the sea…" and Sam surfaced abruptly, knowing that this was what he'd missed earlier. His eyes flashed open and he grasped the startled nurse by the wrist as she was brushing the sand from his blanket.

He managed to gather his thoughts together and turned on his most charming smile.

"Please, it is very important that I contact my bro..my partner immediately. I desperately need a phone." The nurse (it was the pretty one Dean had been admiring and whose badge said her name was Carrie) looked as though she was about to refuse, but as Sam deployed the lethal puppy-dog eyes of persuasion, he could see her defences melt. So much so that she offered him the use of her own cell phone. He tried not to snatch it from her and dialled Dean's mobile, tapping his fingers anxiously as it seemed to take an age for his brother to answer. When Dean finally came on the line, Sam's anxiety only increased tenfold, as it immediately became obvious he'd interrupted a battle royale.

"What!" Dean was yelling, and Sam unconsciously echoed Dean's volume as he replied.

"Dean! Listen to me, this is important. Salt won't work! Use iron!" Sam could see Nurse Carrie staring at him as if he'd gone crazy, but ignored her.

"Sam…what do you… mean, salt…. won't work?" Dean's words were being punctuated by a series of shotgun blasts, one after another.

"The sand has salt in it, the settlers' bodies were turned to sand so salt won't work!"

Sam rubbed his hand against the blanket as he yelled down the phone, feeling the grittiness of sand under his finger-tips. He heard Carrie gasp and looked up, feeling a sudden chilly draught. _Oh no_. The sand Carrie had been complaining about was moving. A cold breeze from nowhere was gathering the scattered grains into a small conical pile on the floor by the nurse's feet, and it was growing rapidly. Sam looked around the room wildly, feeling totally helpless.

Simultaneously in their different locations, the Winchester brothers voiced their mutual feelings. "Crap."

"Sammy, what is it?" Dean rasped.

"Dean, gotta go, they are here too." Sam said hurriedly, and put the phone down.

The heap of sand was starting to grow and was forming itself into a recognisable human shape, and the pretty nurse, now white-faced with fear, appeared transfixed, paralysed by this unnatural phenomenon. Sam wasn't sure that he could stand, let alone walk anywhere, but he had hoped she would have been able to make it out of there. However, the spirit was blocking her route to the door. He started to pull out the IVs that were tethering him to the bed, wincing as every movement seemed to set off a new pain receptor. "Carrie." He made his voice as calm and authoritative as he could and she finally turned and caught his eye. "Carrie, get behind me. Come on, come round the bed behind me, that's it…. Now, tell me. Is there anything in the room made of iron?" Carrie gave him a panicked look and then her gaze flitted around the room. She made a lunge for the trolley she'd brought in with her and handed Sam a metal bowl. "That's steel, I think?" The question mark in her voice was a _WTH do you want iron for_?, but Sam didn't have time to explain as he slid his bare legs over the edge of the bed and tried to stand up, clutching what had to be the most ridiculous weapon he'd ever tried to use against anything supernatural in his whole life. A bowl.

Carrie was saying something about he shouldn't be standing, which was superfluous advice as his whole body was saying the same thing, but with ten times the emphasis. Freed from the constant drip of the painkillers, his back and stomach were already starting to flame with agony and his legs were trembling. In front of him, the spirit of a 17th century Dutch settler was solidifying and an ugly smile was forming on the dead man's face. _Great,_ Sam thought. _This is just what I need to recuperate…_

******

Dean had put Sam onto speaker when he'd answered the call, as his hands were a bit full, what with peppering ghosts with ineffective rock-salt and all. He supposed he should have been grateful that he now had the explanation of why the blasts were about as useful as they had been against Mordechai the Tibetan thought form; each shot as it hit was simply causing the ghosts to waver into a black demon-like smoke and reform almost instantly. But whatever gratitude he might have felt was subsumed by the fear that was now washing over him – what had Sam said? _They_ were there too? These damn ghosts were not constrained by place when their essence was apparently carried around in the grains of sand from the beach, the same sand that made them virtually immune to what was usually the hunters' most effective weapon. Now Sam was facing one or more deadly spirits whilst trapped in his hospital bed, helpless and weak, and meanwhile his pitiful excuse for a big brother was stuck here with a bunch of even more useless screaming scientists and at least ten spectres that he had counted so far between him and the one thing he was sure would save them all – the parfleche containing their earthly remains.

Time for Dean to do some quick thinking. Risking a glance over his shoulder, he saw three, no four scientists huddled against the wall near the lab door, being menaced by a couple of the spirits. He didn't have long to act or there would be deaths, and Dean Winchester had too many of those on his hands already to be happy to accept even one more. Over the racket caused by the alarm, the screaming and the wind that was still blowing, Dean managed to get his message through to Eric, savagely overriding the Sheriff's protests. Someone had to get those people out of there. The pair moved, still back to back, down the corridor and paused at the open laboratory door.

"Now!" Dean roared, throwing Eric a machete from the Winchester bag of tricks. Eric peeled off from Dean's back and ran to rescue the huddle of scientists, slashing right and left with the lethal iron with great effect and, Dean couldn't help notice with a touch of admiration, great panache for a middle-aged, slightly portly Podunk town Sheriff.

Scrabbling in his bag for a second machete, Dean was taken by surprise as the spirit of a large man materialised right next to him. The spirit seized him by the arm and swung him off his feet, flinging him sideways with great force. He crashed through the lab doorway, straight into a table full of laptops and notebooks that went flying to the floor in one direction while his duffle bag flew in the other, coming to rest under the table. All the breath was knocked out of him as his torso smacked hard against the edge of the table, and he staggered but somehow retained his footing. Even as he registered that he had probably cracked a couple of ribs, his eyes were assessing where his weapons had fallen, as well as the position of the cabinet containing the parfleche. He could see the machete he'd been holding was a couple of yards away from his feet, but unfortunately (_ha, wasn't that just his luck?_) the spirit was standing between him and the weapon. In fact, even as he tried desperately to suck in a breath against the jabbing pain in his ribs, he noted that the first spirit was joined by another, and then another. And what was more, one of them seemed to be holding a real sword. _Fuck._

At least the alarm had stopped, and he hoped that was a sign that Eric had managed to get those other people safely outside, because it was looking like he was screwed. And the worse thing about that? If he didn't destroy the parfleche containing all those scalps, _Sam_ was going to die. Even as despair rose up like bile, two things happened at once. There was a small scrabbling noise behind him, from underneath the table, and a small hand appeared by his leg, waving his largest bowie knife. Looking down in surprise, Dean's hazel gaze was met by a pair of intense dark blue eyes that reminded him of Castiel's. Automatically his fingers closed around the hilt of the blade being offered to him and he raised it just in time to block the first blow from the leader spirit's ghostly sword, which he observed, gritting his teeth as the two blades clashed with a loud clang, was a whole lot more real than was comfortable, or even possible. Then abruptly as thought, the ghost was replaced in front of his nose by another set of intense blue eyes, that this time did belong to the totally unexpected trench-coated form of his personal angel, Castiel.

The angel's body seemed to be forming an impenetrable shield between Dean (and his mysterious under the table companion) and the settler spirit army, and Dean gratefully took the briefest of moments to compose himself before realising what he needed Castiel to do.

"Dean, you are injured…" Cas started to speak but Dean interrupted urgently.

"Cas, Sam is in danger. You have to go to room 311, the Beebe Medical Centre…" he registered the protest that was about to pass his favourite angel's lips, and ruthlessly overrode it before a word could be uttered. "I got this one. Go, now, Cas – please!"

Then the angel was gone as if he'd never been there at all, just the faintest little puff of a fresh scented breeze on Dean's hot face and a gasp of shock from beneath the table. The ghosts still seemed dazed by the appearance and disappearance of the angel, and Dean was quick to take advantage.

"I don't know who you are under there..?"

"Marta Raven," came a woman's husky voice, still sounding a lot shaken.

"Well Marta, we have to burn that parfleche in the container behind you, or these guys are going to kill us both - then there'll be nothing to stop them going out there and slaughtering every man woman and child in Lewes."

He could hear the woman, he assumed she was one of the scientists, shifting uncomfortably. Keeping a close watch on the fortuitously immobile ghostly host in front of him, he pressed on.

"In my bag down there, you'll find salt, accelerant and a lighter. Grab them and get that damned parfleche out, salt it and burn it…"

He was forced to break off as the group of ghosts emerged from whatever angel binding Castiel's presence had placed on them. Reanimated, two of them lunged forward towards Dean in perfect synchronisation. His back now pressed up against the table, he could only hope that the startlingly blue-eyed Marta understood and would follow his instructions. Dean slashed right and left with the iron knife, and the two spirits dissipated, only to be instantly replaced by two more of their comrades. He counted at least ten of the settlers' ghosts now in the room and knew however hard he fought, he was not going to last long against odds like these. He had no more breath for talking as his knife became a desperate blur of motion. Then the man with the sword was in front of him, the gleam of sharp metal sweeping down at his head, his side, his arm. He countered again and again, feeling himself growing weary as his cracked ribs restricted his breathing, and then the enemy's blade flickered through his guard slicing a vicious blow through the muscles of his right thigh. He couldn't help a cry of pain, and staggered slightly, unbalanced by the blow. That left him open on his left and he saw a look of triumph in his opponent's dark dead eyes as the next slash of the sword cut deep into his left bicep. This was bad, very bad. He couldn't feel the pain yet, though he knew it would come and quickly too, but both wounds were deep and bleeding freely. He knew he would get weak very swiftly if he couldn't stem that flow of blood. He countered the next two strokes, but could feel his reactions rapidly slowing, bit his lip in frustration. A moment later and he was down, hitting the floor with some force. His foot had slipped in his own blood that was now liberally coating the tiled lab floor, and from his prone position he only just managed to block a swipe that would otherwise have taken his head off.

One more blow was all it would take to finish him off, and Dean could see that the Dutch captain (or leader or whoever the hell he'd been all those centuries ago) knew it too.

******

Castiel felt uncomfortable leaving Dean alone to deal with a room full of angry spirits, but he understood very well that saving Sam would always come first for his often incomprehensible human friend. However, the angel was used to Dean making him feel uncomfortable, the young man had always had the knack for doing that from the moment they had first met. So, in less than the blink of an eye, Castiel was standing in the Beebe's room 311, as instructed. He was just in time to catch Sam as the tall young hunter lunged forward waving something gleaming, round and silver-coloured in the vague direction of the lone ghost that was advancing slowly in a threatening manner on both the hunter and a pretty nurse who was cowering behind Sam's bed. Castiel held Sam firmly with one arm wrapped around him, propping him up, while turning to gesture with his other hand at the growling ghost. In an instant, the spirit flared up in a flash of bright white light, like a magnesium flare, and was gone.

The angel turned and carefully helped Sam back into the bed. With a gesture, he watched as under his direction the various lines and drips reattached themselves to the exhausted young man. Sam's hazel eyes, so like his brother's, were wide and anxious.

"Cas!" Sam exclaimed. "Dean's in trouble…"

Castiel almost smiled. _These Winchesters. Always looking out for each other, even after everything they had put each other through over the past few years…_.

He stepped forward and very gently touched the younger Winchester brother's forehead. Sam immediately sank deep into a restful sleep, his expression wiped clean of care. Castiel caught the terrified glance of the pretty nurse who was still standing rigid with fear behind Sam's bed. A nano-second later he was right inside her personal space. Before she could react with the scream Cas would see was poised on her lips, he had pressed two fingers to her forehead, and her face cleared. She turned away from the angel as is he wasn't there and took charge of her trolley again, then casually sauntered from the room, a smile on her face. That young FBI guy was really quite gorgeous, she'd better stay away from him or that puppy-dog expression would have her heart in knots, she thought as she returned to the nurses station. If she had bothered to turn around to check, she would only have seen a peacefully sleeping Sam – Castiel had gone.

******

The last blow never fell. Dean lay exhausted with his arm raised, knife held ready for the final strike that never came. After a few seconds, he lowered his arm, and stared as one by one, the spectres of the long lost colony of Zwaanendael dissolved into puffs of flame and ash. Feeling stiff and old, he turned his head to see Marta carefully supervising the merrily burning ancient parfleche with its cargo of long forgotten souls. Dean thought he had rarely seen such a pleasant sight. (And that Marta was pretty easy on the eye too…).

Now all he cared about was making sure Sam was okay, and that thought was enough to have the older Winchester desperately struggling to climb to his feet, his injuries disregarded with the contempt they deserved. He clung to the table edge and scrabbled with bloody fingers in his ruined suit pockets for his cell phone. Marta the scientist was at his side in an instant, small hands on his arm supporting him, those piercing blue eyes searing his soul, just like Cas always did. Their depths made him dizzy. Or was that just the loss of blood? The cell slipped from his nerveless fingers. He heard Marta saying something, but it was lost in the rushing in his ears, and so he missed Castiel arriving to catch his limp form as he finally passed out, bonelessly yet quite gracefully into the angel's inhumanly strong arms.

Castiel held Dean's senseless bloody body cradled like a small child in his arms. Marta was joined by Sheriff Sutcliffe, who was out of breath having run back inside the building to help once he had seen his charges to relative safety moments before. The two humans stared at the angel and his burden and both were thinking that this was probably the strangest sight of the night, seeing the tall brave (probably not) FBI agent being effortlessly lifted into the arms of a small dark haired (probably not) man clad in a crumpled blue suit and incongruous beige trench coat. Marta and Eric remained speechless for some little while after this pieta-like tableau vanished into thin air as if it had never been there, with only the blood stains glistening, and the dark burnt patch of black ash remaining as evidence that anything untoward had ever occurred in the now silent laboratory.

******

A/N - don't know if this should finish here or if an epilogue is needed... Anyhow, all comments good, bad and ugly are always welcome!


	7. Epilogue

A/N Ok, I thought in the end this needed a reunion to round the story off, so here it is.

Epilogue

******

This was a different kind of dream. He knew it was a dream with that certainty that some dreaming brings, even though at first there was nothing strange or unusual about it. He was in the weird Moby Dick Motel room in Lewes. Sam's bed was empty because Sam was still stuck in the Beebe Medical Centre, and it was dark outside. He knew he wasn't actually there, looking at the clock on the bedside table, but knowing that didn't stop him getting up and opening the Motel room door. Because he knew that someone was out there, waiting for him. Someone who didn't want to come inside his head uninvited. Someone whose need to talk to him was pervading all his thoughts and had taken control of his dream body, calling to him, reeling him in as if he was a fish caught on a line.

He stepped over the salted threshold and into the bright moonlit night. In his dream he felt the cold night air run its fingers through his short spiky hair, his bare toes curled up away from the chilly wet tarmac as if he was really there, even though he was sure that he was still in bed somewhere. Standing next to the dark gleaming beauty of the Impala was a shadow dressed in a long beige trench coat.

Castiel.

Because it was a dream, Dean barely even registered surprise, just walked over to the angel and greeted him as if it hadn't been many months since they had last properly spoken.

"Cas."

"Dean." The angel's voice was deep and familiar and Dean felt a sudden pang, like homesickness.

"Cas, where've you been all this time? You rescued us from that Yokai back in November last year, then you turn up at the marine centre and save Sam. Every time you just upped and disappeared again." Because he was just dreaming, he could say what he would never say out loud when he was awake, to this angel who had become his friend.

"Man, I've missed you."

And because this wasn't real, Castiel - the angel with a stick up his ass - actually smiled.

"You know, Dean, as an angel, I had been around on earth for a long time, merely observing humankind. Obeying orders, not caring, not feeling, just doing my duty. Then Heaven assigned me to you. To you and Sam, the Winchester brothers. From that moment, everything began to change; I began to change. _You_ changed me Dean."

Castiel paused, stretched out his arm and placed a warm hand on Dean shoulder. Its weight seemed to ground the hunter, made him feel – safe, whole, human.

"I care about you. I care about Sam. Thanks to you both, I understand a little more about what makes humans special. Your loyalty, your love, your willingness to sacrifice everything you have for each other."

Castiel felt around his shirt collar, hooked a finger round the leather thong hanging round his neck and pulled it over his head. He held it out to Dean, the moonlight glinting on the familiar dull gold coloured deity-detecting amulet, Dean's treasured memento of a precious childhood moment.

"You should take this back."

Dean felt the cold metal against his palm, closed his fingers in a fist around it so tight he could feel the sharp points of the horned head cutting into flesh. He shut his eyes for a moment, seeing Sam's face all those years ago as his little brother had bravely shoved back the disappointment caused by their father's absence and insisted Dean take the present he had meant for John Winchester.

His own voice sounded rough in his ears as he asked the crucial question.

"So, are you telling me that you actually found God? That's where you've been all this time?"

The blue-eyed angel shook his head.

"No, Dean, I have not found my Father yet, but I will keep looking."

Dean looked at his closed fist, slowly released his grip and handed the amulet back to his angel.

"Here, you need this God EMF more than I do." He said as he dropped the necklace into Castiel's open hand. "I've got Sam back now, I don't need a souvenir of the past to remind me what having a brother means to me."

There was that strange fluttering disturbance in the air and Castiel was gone, Dean's amulet with him.

_Dean Winchester stood alone in the empty parking lot listening to the night sounds, wondering why the crickets sounded like a heart monitor's regular beep, beep, beep before he opened his eyes to see Sam's bare legs sticking out from a hospital gown as his sasquatch brother folded himself in half to sit in a wheel chair, his broad bulk providing shade for Dean's tired eyes against the sun-filled window. Damn but his little brother looked good, considering._

_Sam caught his eye, smiled._

"_Hey, you're awake at last."_

_Dean swallowed, managed to croak, "You can't talk, coma-boy…" and was rewarded with a Bobby-snort of derision, as the older hunter wheeled into view, grinning widely from underneath a ragged baseball cap that was so dirty-looking it was a wonder he'd managed to get it past hospital security. _

"_You guys been practising sychronised moves in those chairs?" Dean tried to crack a grin in a face stiff as cardboard from lack of use. _

_He lifted a hand that felt heavier than a black hole to rub his face, and was shocked into silence as he saw, marked deeply into his palm, the clear imprint of his African amulet._

"_Cas." He whispered in wonder, as he closed his fingers over the red marks._

_*****_

Hope you have enjoyed the story. I know that the series is unlikely to be much like this, as they've already said God will appear sometime in Season 5, but I like the thought that Cas_' _search will be like one of those heroic quests, all about the journey and the yearning rather than the finding of the object... Love to hear what you all think! _  
_


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